A name is a word or term used for identification, according to the dictionary. Names can identify a class or category of things, or a single thing, either uniquely, or within a given context.

A person's name, given by parents after his or her birth, is seldom changed until death. Names of countries are no exception, except for Myanmar from Burma and Cambodia from Kampuchea.

Such rare name changes were once popular among chebol groups. LG was Lucky Goldstar, SK was Sunkyung, Hanwha was Korea Explosives and KT (not The Korea Times) was Korea Telecom, to name a few.

A name change is a stereotypical step in a bid to "turn over a new leaf and make a fresh start," and is almost a monopoly of political parties of the Republic of Korea.

The political party history of the nation is second to none in the world as far as name changes are concerned, together with that of the government's intelligence organization, in particular.

Here is the representing case. The Republic's first intelligence apparatus, the (Korean) Central Intelligence Agency (called "Jungjeong"), founded by Kim Jong-pil after the May 16 coup in 1961, was forced to have a new name after its then-Director Kim Jae-kyu assassinated President Park Chung-hee on Oct. 26, 1979.

The government of President Chun Doo-hwan changed the name to the Agency for National Security Planning (NSP or "Angi-bu") in January 1980, which was renamed the National Information Agency (NIA or "Gukjeong-won") in January 1999 by the Kim Dae-jung administration.

The Lee Myung-bak government later changed the English title of the NIA to the NIS (National Intelligence Service) "to become familiar to the people" by replacing the word "agency" with "service."

A similar renaming took place at the Defense Security Command, the all-powerful intelligence organization of the Army, which played a key role in helping new military elites seize power after Park's death, after a senior journalist was attacked by its members for his disparaging reports about it. Amid severe public criticism, its name was changed from "Jeongbo-sa" to the present "Gimusa" to renovate its bad image.

But what appears to be crystal clear is that the name changes have done little to alter the system for the better.

The political parties, particularly the present opposition forces, are almost the same.

Founding a party or renaming one is a piece of cake.

About 220 political parties were established legally since the birth of the republic in 1948, according to the National Election Commission. Of course, most of them no longer exist, except for the three main parties with parliamentary seats and some extra-parliamentary parties.

As mentioned before, the history of Korea's political parties features the unlimited changing of party names, especially those of opposition parties, mostly ahead of parliamentary or presidential elections.

Former President Kim Young-sam, elected in 1992 as the candidate of the Democratic Liberal Party, founded the New Korea Party (NKP) in 1993 and changed its name to the Grand National Party, whose abbreviation awkwardly resulted in the GNP, not the gross national product, in a "bid to inject a breath of fresh air" before the 1997 presidential election, but failed to prevent the first-ever transfer of power to the opposition party led by the late Kim Dae-jung..

The GNP was renamed to the present Saenuri Party in February 2012 ahead of the presidential election in December of that year, and its candidate Park Geun-hye was elected.

As for the opposition forces, the current New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD: a really difficult name to remember, compared to its parent Democratic Party founded in 1955) was launched in March 2014 through the merger of the main opposition Democratic Party and New Politics Alliance led by political new face Ahn Chul-soo.

However, what's happening in the opposition camp of late indicates that the party is very likely to be split sooner or later due to its intraparty factional strife, while forces in the Honam region, including former justice minister Chun Jung-bae, have already declared their intention to found a new party with expected deserters from the NPAD led by Rep. Moon Jae-in, who lost to President Park in the 2012 election.

What will be the name of the new minor opposition party?

Traditionally and habitually also, the nation's opposition forces used to love the word, "minju" (democratic) or "gukmin" (people), for the title of their parties like they started with the Democratic Party ("Minju-dang") in 1955.

The frequent change of party names finally resulted in a comedy-like happening two weeks ago as the NPAD held a ceremony to mark the 60th anniversary of the Democratic Party, claiming it is the direct heir to the Democratic Party, while the extra-parliamentary party with the title of the Democratic Party argued that the "NPAD should know its place."

The nascent opposition party is expected to choose the word, "minju" (democratic or democracy) for its name.

In terms of parliamentary democracy, it is too much to compare ours to that of Britain, the United States or other advanced nations.

However, I hope that our politicians will take just a look into the tradition of such countries' political parties. The main parties' names have never changed ― the Republican Party and Democratic Party of the U.S. and Conservative Party and Labor Party of Britain, etc.

If a simple change in name is the key to success, then everyone now facing difficulties will change his or her name with no hesitation. Then, the courts will become very busy with jobs to allow the change of names.

Park Moo-jong is a Korea Times advisor. He had served as the president-publisher of the daily from 2004 to 2014 after he had worked as a reporter at the paper since 1974. He can be contacted at moojong@ktimes.com.